Numerical thought with and without words: Evidence from indigenous Australian children.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Butterworth B
PROVIDER: S-EPMC2527348 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:BackgroundThe purpose of this study was to describe the food and nutrient intake of a population of rural Australian children particularly Indigenous children. Participants were aged 10 to 12 years, and living in areas of relative socio-economic disadvantage on the north coast of New South Wales.MethodsIn this descriptive cross-sectional study 215 children with a mean age of 11.30 (SD 0.04) years (including 82 Indigenous children and 93 boys) completed three 24-hour food recalls (including 1 weekend day), over an average of two weeks in the Australian summer of late 2005.ResultsA high proportion of children consumed less than the Australian Nutrient Reference Values for fibre (74-84% less than Adequate Intake (AI)), calcium (54-86% less than Estimated Average Requirement (EAR)), folate and magnesium (36% and 28% respectively less than EAR among girls), and the majority of children exceeded the upper limit for sodium (68-76% greater than Upper Limit (UL)). Energy-dense nutrient-poor (EDNP) food consumption contributed between 45% and 49% to energy. Hot chips, sugary drinks, high-fat processed meats, salty snacks and white bread were the highest contributors to key nutrients and sugary drinks were the greatest per capita contributor to daily food intake for all. Per capita intake differences were apparent by Indigenous status. Consumption of fruit and vegetables was low for all children. Indigenous boys had a higher intake of energy, macronutrients and sodium than non-Indigenous boys.ConclusionsThe nutrient intake and excessive EDNP food consumption levels of Australian rural children from disadvantaged areas are cause for concern regarding their future health and wellbeing, particularly for Indigenous boys. Targeted intervention strategies should address the high consumption of these foods.
| S-EPMC3308924 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are more likely than non-Indigenous Australians to be obese and experience chronic disease in adulthood--conditions linked to being overweight in childhood. Birthweight and prenatal exposures are associated with increased Body Mass Index (BMI) in other populations, but the relationship is unclear for Indigenous children. The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children is an ongoing cohort study of up to 1,759 children across Australia. We used a multilevel model to examine the association between children's birthweight and BMI z-score in 2011, at age 3-9 years, adjusted for sociodemographic and maternal factors. Complete data were available for 682 of the 1,264 children participating in the 2011 survey; we repeated the analyses in the full sample with BMI recorded (n=1,152) after multilevel multiple imputation. One in ten children were born large for gestational age, and 17% were born small for gestational age. Increasing birthweight predicted increasing BMI; a 1-unit increase in birthweight z-score was associated with a 0.22-unit (95% CI:0.13, 0.31) increase in childhood BMI z-score. Maternal smoking during pregnancy was associated with a significant increase (0.25; 95% CI:0.05, 0.45) in BMI z-score. The multiple imputation analysis indicated that our findings were not distorted by biases in the missing data. High birthweight may be a risk indicator for overweight and obesity among Indigenous children. National targets to reduce the incidence of low birthweight which measure progress by an increase in the population's average birthweight may be ignoring a significant health risk; both ends of the spectrum must be considered. Interventions to improve maternal health during pregnancy are the first step to decreasing the prevalence of high BMI among the next generation of Indigenous children.
| S-EPMC4468174 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Indigenous Australians experience profound levels of disadvantage in health, living standards, life expectancy, education and employment, particularly in comparison with non-Indigenous Australians. Very little information is available about the healthy development of Australian Indigenous children; the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC) is designed to fill this knowledge gap.This dataset provides an opportunity to follow the development of up to 1759 Indigenous children. LSIC conducts annual face-to-face interviews with children (aged 0.5-2 and 3.5-5 years at baseline in 2008) and their caregivers. This represents between 5% and 10% of the total population of Indigenous children in these age groups, including families of varied socioeconomic and cultural backgrounds. Study topics include: the physical, social and emotional well-being of children and their caregivers; language; culture; parenting; and early childhood education.LSIC is a shared resource, formed in partnership with communities; its data are readily accessible through the Australian Government Department of Social Services (see http://dss.gov.au/lsic for data and access arrangements). As one of very few longitudinal studies of Indigenous children, and the only national one, LSIC will enable an understanding of Indigenous children from a wide range of environments and cultures. Findings from LSIC form part of a growing infrastructure from which to understand Indigenous child health.
| S-EPMC4521121 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundSince 2006 there has been substantial long-term investment in school-based child obesity prevention programs in New South Wales (Australia). Whether these programs have led to population level improvements in children's weight status and weight-related behaviors are yet to be determined. The purpose of this study was to describe changes in children's weight status and weight-related behaviors, including Indigenous children, who are at greater risk of poorer health outcomes than non-Indigenous children.MethodsRepresentative cross-sectional population surveys conducted in 2010 and 2015 among children age 5-16 years (n = 15,613). Objective measurements included height, weight, waist circumference, cardiorespiratory fitness, and fundamental movement skills. Indigenous status and indicators of weight-related behavior (i.e., diet, physical activity, school travel, screen-time) were measured by questionnaire with parents responding for children age <10 years and self-report by children age ?10 years.ResultsThe prevalences of overweight/obesity, obesity and abdominal obesity were higher in 2015, than 2010, and higher among Indigenous than non-Indigenous children at both timepoints. There were some small positive changes towards healthier weight-related behaviors between surveys among all children, but many unhealthy weight-related behaviors remain highly prevalent. The magnitude of changes and the 2015 prevalences of weight-related behaviors were generally similar for Indigenous and non-Indigenous children.ConclusionsSchools play an important role in health promotion, but our findings suggest the current approaches need re-thinking. Upstream factors that shape weight-related behaviors such as the regulation of the food industry and food environment, urban, neighborhood and public transport planning must be including in solutions to ensure populations can eat healthily and be physical active.
| S-EPMC6615594 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Ivermectin is a broad-spectrum antiparasitic agent used for the treatment and control of neglected tropical diseases. In Australia, ivermectin is primarily used for scabies and is licensed in children aged ≥5 years weighing >15 kg. However, young children, aged <5 years, are particularly vulnerable to scabies and its secondary complications. Therefore, this study aimed to determine an appropriate ivermectin dose for children aged 2 to 4 years and weighing ≤15 kg. We conducted a prospective, pharmacokinetic study of ivermectin in Indigenous Australian children aged between 5 and 15 years and weighing >15 kg. Doses of 200 μg/kg rounded to the nearest whole or half 3 mg tablet were given to children with scabies and ivermectin concentrations determined at two time points after dosing. A population pharmacokinetic model was developed using non-linear mixed effects modelling. A separate covariate database of children aged 2 to 4 years and weighing <15 kg was used to generate 1000 virtual patients and simulate the dose required to achieve equivalent drug exposure in young children as those aged ≥5 years. Overall, 26 children who had 48 ivermectin concentrations determined were included, 11 (42%) were male, the median age was 10.9 years and median body weight 37.6 kg. The final model was a two-compartment model with first-order absorption and linear elimination. For simulated children aged 2 to 4 years, a dose of 3 mg in children weighing 10-15 kg produced similar drug exposures to those >5 years. The median simulated area under the concentration-time curve was 976 μg∙h/L. Using modelling, we have identified a dosing strategy for ivermectin in children aged 2 to 4 years and weighing less than 15 kg that can be prospectively evaluated for safety and efficacy.
| S-EPMC7746298 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundRheumatic heart disease (RHD) remains a leading cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in children and young adults in disadvantaged populations. The emergence of echocardiographic screening provides the opportunity for early disease detection and intervention. Using our own multistate model of RHD progression derived from Australian RHD register data, we performed a cost-utility analysis of echocardiographic screening in indigenous Australian children, with the dual aims of informing policy decisions in Australia and providing a model that could be adapted in other countries.Methods and resultsWe simulated the outcomes of 2 screening strategies, assuming that RHD could be detected 1, 2, or 3 years earlier by screening. Outcomes included reductions in heart failure, surgery, mortality, disability-adjusted life-years, and corresponding costs. Only a strategy of screening all indigenous 5- to 12-year-olds in half of their communities in alternate years was found to be cost-effective (incremental cost-effectiveness ratio less than AU$50 000 per disability-adjusted life-year averted), assuming that RHD can be detected at least 2 years earlier by screening; however, this result was sensitive to a number of assumptions. Additional modeling of improved adherence to secondary prophylaxis alone resulted in dramatic reductions in heart failure, surgery, and death; these outcomes improved even further when combined with screening.ConclusionsEchocardiographic screening for RHD is cost-effective in our context, assuming that RHD can be detected ≥2 years earlier by screening. Our model can be adapted to any other setting but will require local data or acceptable assumptions for model parameters.
| S-EPMC5524001 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BACKGROUND: Low plasma high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) levels are a strong, independent, but poorly understood risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). Although this atherogenic lipid abnormality has been widely reported in Australia's Indigenous peoples, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, the evidence has not come under systematic review. This review therefore examines published data for Indigenous Australians reporting 1) mean HDL-C levels for both sexes and 2) factors associated with low HDL-C. METHODS: PubMed, Medline and Informit ATSI Health databases were systematically searched between 1950 and 2012 for studies on Indigenous Australians reporting mean HDL-C levels in both sexes. Retrieved studies were evaluated by standard criteria. Low HDL-C was defined as: <1.0 mmol/L. Analyses of primary data associating measures of HDL-C with other CVD risk factors were also performed. RESULTS: Fifteen of 93 retrieved studies were identified for inclusion. These provided 58 mean HDL-C levels; 29 for each sex, most obtained in rural/regional (20%) or remote settings (60%) and including 51-1641 participants. For Australian Aborigines, mean HDL-C values ranged between 0.81-1.50 mmol/L in females and 0.76-1.60 mmol/L in males. Two of 15 studies reported HDL-C levels for Torres Strait Islander populations, mean HDL-C: 1.00 or 1.11 mmol/L for females and 1.01 or 1.13 mmol/L for males. Low HDL-C was observed only in rural/regional and remote settings--not in national or urban studies (n?=?3) in either gender. Diabetes prevalence, mean/median waist-to-hip ratio and circulating C-reactive protein levels were negatively associated with HDL-C levels (all P?<?0.05). Thirty-four per cent of studies reported lower mean HDL-C levels in females than in males. CONCLUSIONS: Very low mean HDL-C levels are common in Australian Indigenous populations living in rural and remote communities. Inverse associations between HDL-C and central obesity, diabetes prevalence and inflammatory markers suggest a particularly adverse CVD risk factor profile. An absence of sex dichotomy in HDL-C levels warrants further investigation.
| S-EPMC4067101 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Children with dyslexia are extremely slow at reading long words but they are faster with stimuli composed of roots and derivational suffixes (e.g., CASSIERE, 'cashier') than stimuli not decomposable in morphemes (e.g., CAMMELLO, 'camel'). The present study assessed whether root length modulates children's morphological processing. For typically developing readers, root activation was expected to be higher for longer than shorter roots because longer roots are more informative access units than shorter ones. By contrast, readers with dyslexia were not expected to be facilitated by longer roots because these roots might exceed dyslexics' processing capacities. Two groups of Italian 6th graders, with and without dyslexia, read aloud low-frequency derived words, with familiar roots and suffixes. Word reaction times (RTs) and mispronunciations were recorded. Linear mixed-effects regression analyses on RTs showed the inhibitory effect of word length and the facilitating effect of root frequency for both children with and without dyslexia. Root length predicted RTs of typically developing readers only, with faster RTs for longer roots, over and above the inhibitory effect of word length. Furthermore, typically developing children had faster RTs on words with more frequent suffixes while children with dyslexia were faster when roots had a small family size. Generalized linear regression analyses on accuracy showed facilitating effects of word frequency and suffix frequency, for both groups. The large word length effect on latencies confirmed laborious whole-word processing in children when reading low-frequency derived words. The absence of a word frequency effect along with the facilitating effect of root frequency indicated morphemic processing in all readers. The reversed root length effect in typically developing readers pointed to a stronger activation for longer roots in keeping with the idea that these represent particularly informative units for word decoding. For readers with dyslexia the facilitating effect of root frequency (not modulated by root length) confirmed a pervasive benefit of root activation while the lack of root length modulation indicated that the longest roots were for them too large units to be processed within a single fixation.
| S-EPMC5952107 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Everyday speech is produced with an intricate timing pattern and rhythm. Speech units follow each other with short interleaving pauses, which can be either bridged by fillers (erm, ah) or empty. Through their syntactic positions, pauses connect to the thoughts expressed. We investigated whether disturbances of thought in schizophrenia are manifest in patterns at this level of linguistic organization, whether these are seen in first degree relatives (FDR) and how specific they are to formal thought disorder (FTD). Spontaneous speech from 15 participants without FTD (SZ-FTD), 15 with FTD (SZ+FTD), 15 FDRs and 15 neurotypical controls (NC) was obtained from a comic strip retelling task and rated for pauses subclassified by syntactic position and duration. SZ-FTD produced significantly more unfilled pauses than NC in utterance-initial positions and before embedded clauses. Unfilled pauses occurring within clausal units did not distinguish any groups. SZ-FTD also differed from SZ+FTD in producing significantly more pauses before embedded clauses. SZ+FTD differed from NC and FDR only in producing longer utterance-initial pauses. FDRs produced significantly fewer fillers than NC. Results reveal that the temporal organization of speech is an important window on disturbances of the thought process and how these relate to language.
| S-EPMC6544238 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectiveLimited cross-sectional data indicate elevated overweight/obesity prevalence among Indigenous versus non-Indigenous Australian children. This study aims to quantify body mass index (BMI) trajectories among Indigenous Australian children aged 3-6 and 6-9 years and to identify factors associated with the development of overweight/obesity.MethodsThree-year BMI change was examined in up to 1,157 children in the national Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children. BMI trajectories among children with normal baseline BMI (n?=?907/1,157) were quantified using growth curve models.ResultsBaseline prevalences of overweight/obesity were 12.1% and 25.4% among children of mean age 3 and 6 years, respectively. Of children with normal baseline BMI, 31.9% had overweight/obesity 3 years later; BMI increased more rapidly for younger versus older (difference: 0.59 kg/m2 /year; 95% CI: 0.50-0.69), female versus male (difference: 0.15 kg/m2 /year; 95% CI: 0.07-0.23), and Torres Strait Islander versus Aboriginal (difference: 0.36 kg/m2 /year; 95% CI: 0.17-0.55) children. Results were consistent with less rapid rates of BMI increase for children with lower sugar-sweetened beverage (including fruit juice) and high-fat food consumption. Children's BMI was lower in more disadvantaged areas.ConclusionsOverweight/obesity is common, and increases rapidly, in early childhood. Interventions are required to reduce the overweight/obesity prevalence among Indigenous Australian children in the first 3 years of life and to slow the rapid overweight/obesity onset from age 3 to 9 years.
| S-EPMC5396259 | biostudies-literature